Novel properties often emerge in low-dimensional nanomaterials, such as polymer-nanorod organic solar cells, graphene, Si nanowires (NWs), and TiO2 nanoparticles, which can be used to enhance the performance of devices for electronics, energy harvesting, photonics and sensing. Other examples show increased optical absorption efficiency arising from surface plasmon modes in 50-100 nm diameter spherical, metallic nanoparticles on amorphous Si which scatter light more effectively for solar cell applications.
Optical absorption efficiency, an important metric for sensing, radiometric and energy harvesting applications, has been studied theoretically and experimentally in porous, ordered nanostructures, including multi-walled- (MW) carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and single-walled- (SW) CNTs. High-density arrays of CNTs on electrically insulating and nonmetallic substrates have been commonly reported.
There is a need for systems and methods that provide optical absorbers that operate over a wide range of wavelengths and that have high absorptivity, low reflectivity and thermal stability.